


Bleeds Beyond a System That is Falling Apart (a beating heart)

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dystopian Future, M/M, Robot AU, Sci-Fi, Teen Wolf Rebang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 00:59:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oddly enough, it starts in a junk yard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bleeds Beyond a System That is Falling Apart (a beating heart)

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAAH HERE IT IS. I’M SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUY’S TO READ THIS. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. Okay! So, without too much more ado, I present to you, MY REBANG. FIRST EVER. [(Mod'd by TW Rebang!)](http://twreversebang.livejournal.com/)
> 
> I’m really so happy with this, it’s probably one of my favorite things to have ever written. So, keeping that in mind, please bear with me (or don’t) as I go through the thanks and such and such. (I don’t mind if you skip this, no one will know.) Also, this is obviously pretty long, but I couldn't decide how to divvy it into chapters, so.
> 
> FIRST OFF: Biggest thanks to the artist for this lovely piece, and as such the person who gave it life and its kickstart, drsxc! Second to my lovely beta reader, Adrian, and further thanks to all my test readers! Seriously, getting prior feedback really helped my confidence. I actually think that’s it, so. WHOOT! Please enjoy~

Stiles’ hands are stiff and chilled in his pockets; his breath is quick, hot but dissipating puffs of silver as he tries to keep an even but speedy pace. It’s getting darker, and the street lamps are ominously bright, casting shadows is all the wrong places. He needs to hurry, because right now the only things he hears are the  _flap-clap-flap-clap_  of his dirty converse on cement sidewalks, and the rustling of things that are too noisy to be just wind.

Pulling the hoodie tighter around him, Stiles ducks off the beaten path that is the grimy city sidewalk he’s been pit-pattering along on, and instead slides between the Stiles-sized gap in the fence. He turns his head to barely avoid a nasty scratch along his cheek, he twists and turns and flails to slide through without a cut, without anything but a sense of slightly terrified accomplishment.

As he trucks towards the freshest pile, Stiles wonders why this still frightens him. He’s been lot-hunting—his affectionate term for what is really just glorified dumpster-diving—since he was fourteen. So, almost ten years now he’s been scouring garbage lots and tech dumping grounds, searching for whatever he finds. He does it at least three times a week, because there are always so many new things.

A low whirring reaches his ears, and he remembers why this still scares him. He wants to let out a shriek, but he tamps it down in favor of diving into a pile of nuts and bolts and synthetic skin, abandoned. The whirring gets louder, and a faint blue light shines in the same arch, left to right, left to right, as the HALEBot passes by.

Stiles doesn’t dare to breathe until the whirring is faint and quickly disappearing. He doesn’t dare to move for another five minutes after that. Once he’s sure the coast is clear, he stretches out an arm, and another, rolling his neck and attempting to get his butt out of the bin he’d evidently landed in. Grunting and groaning and struggling, Stiles waves his arms as if that will give him better leverage.

He wants to curse, to swear and to shout, but he can’t because it’s only a matter of time before the whirring returns.

Sighing Stiles tries one last time, and barely withholds a scream when a lukewarm hand grabs his flailing wrist and pulls him from the wreckage. Which is how Stiles finds himself breathless, panicked, a little foul-smelling, and face to face with a naked man. Clean looking aside from patches of dirt scraped across his skin, and faint stubble embedded in his cheeks, a blank expression sort of stuck—but all the same, very much naked.

“Uh. Hi there.”

The man doesn’t even seem to notice Stiles, aside from his handwrapped around Stiles’ wrist, still. Stiles tugs on the grip, and it only tightens.

“Not that I don’t appreciate that, but why are you naked?” Stiles bites his tongue. “I don’t—I mean, I appreciate you helping me, but I don’t appreciate you being naked—?” Stiles casts a glance up and down the man’s body, “okay well I  _do_  appreciate that, but, seriously, it’s like almost freezing out here. Why are you naked?” Stiles asks again.

The man still doesn’t respond. He does tilt his head, though, and his expression twitches just a bit. Stiles counts it as immediate success. But, before he can congratulate the man, with maybe a dog biscuit and a pat on the head or belly rub, the whirring is returning—and  _fast._

Stiles does squawk in terror this time, and finally shakes off the man’s grip only to grab him back and take him and  _run_. The bots aren’t very fast, as it’s an older dump and thusly, patrolled by less advanced droids. So, by the time the blue light is flickering over Stiles’ hiding spot, Stiles and his new Man Friend are long gone—out the space in the fence and feet clapping with the ground in a sprint to Stiles’ home.

Stiles is out of breath and his chest is heaving by the time he’s made it up the two flights of stairs to his dinky but quaint apartment. He fumbles with the keys to let them in, and pays Man Friend no mind as Stiles leans against the wall to catch his breath.

“ _Sir, are you alright?”_

Stiles starts, but nods with another gasp. “Yeah, AL-5, I’m fine.”

A small compartment in the wall next to him opens up, revealing his inhaler.

He smiles all the same. “Thanks, AL-5.”

“ _Of course, sir.”_

Finally, after there’s sufficient and comfortable air in his lungs, and feeling in his face and toes, and hot chocolate brewing courtesy of his artificial intelligence home bot, AL-5, Stiles returns his attention to New Man Friend. Who isn’t slightly out of breath, who’s still naked, and who’s still yet to have said a word.

Stiles blinks. “You want some hot chocolate?”

The man tilts his head again, but Stiles refuses to call it progress.

“Just. Yeah, okay.” Stiles gives the man a look, and goes to the kitchen. Faintly, he hears footsteps following him—delicate footsteps, soft and unexpected for someone of the man’s size.

Stiles pours him a glass. Well, AL-5 pours it but Stiles hands it to him.

“We should probably get you some clothes, huh?”

The man remains stoic, but he  _does_  take the mug, so, there. Success, little by little.

“I might have some stuff, but I’m kind of..” Stiles thinks of a less-self-degrading word than miniscule, “scrawny compared to you.”

The man cracks a smile at that.

“So you  _can_  emote!” Stiles exclaims. Except it was apparently the wrong thing to say, since the man shuts down, so to speak, face closed off and emotionless. He holds the hot chocolate, but makes no move to drink it. “Er.” Stiles bites his lip. “How about clothes. Clothes are good. Yeah, clothes, awesome, cool.” He continues to mumble, rant, rave; he continues to  _not_  shut his mouth at all costs until they’re in his bedroom and Stiles realizes he owns  _no_ clothes that would fit Mystery New Man Friend.

“Uh, how about this?” Stiles asks, holding up an older Captain America tee. The man takes it, holds it to his own bulging pecs, and makes a face. Stiles would, too, were he Mystery Man, because the shirt would probably end well above his navel. So, Stiles takes the shirt back and digs some more.

“I think this is the biggest thing I own,” Stiles admits sheepishly, tugging a blue and orange polo shirt from the depths of his shirt drawer. “Sorry?”

The man pulls it on, and still looks like someone pissed in his cheerios, but he’s less naked about it. Improvement, Stiles thinks, though his dick wants to say otherwise.

“Right, so, lower half.” Stiles nods more to himself than to Mystery Man, and drops to the ground to rifle through his pajama drawer. Because giving the man underwear would be weird, and if Mystery Man has no qualms about strutting naked, he sure as hell can’t mind going commando. Stiles throws him a pair of oversized sweats that he didn’t even know he  _owned_ , and declares himself Master Host to Strange Men He Picks Up in Garbage Lots.

It’s a step up from Just Stiles, he tells himself. Not much, but some.

)

It isn’t until Stiles is trying to shove a tooth brush into Mystery Silent Brooding Man’s mouth, that he sees the markings— _tattoos—_ on the man’s arm. It’s small, faint, barely there especially under the dirt that’s gathered on skin. But, it’s unmistakable. A thin set of swirls. Stiles gulps.

“I didn’t steal you, right? You were like, officially abandoned? I’m not about to be arrested am I?”

Stiles feels panic rising, and almost doubles over in shock when the man grips his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

“No.”

Stiles blinks. “No?”

The man— _bot_ , his mind supplies—looks pressed. “No, you won’t be arrested.” He spits out the words, like acid on his tongue. “Abandoned.” He mimics, voice sad and lower and Stiles feels a pang of empathy. “For good.”

“Right, okay. That’s not a good thing, for you, I mean for me it’s okay, but I’m sorry? That probably sucks.” Stiles doesn’t say ‘oh you’re just a bot’ because that’s not true, but it’s how people think. “You don’t need to eat or drink, do you?” That at least explains the carefully measured, slow sips of hot chocolate, earlier.

“It was good, though.” The man tells him, voice still strained.

Stiles grins. “AL-5 will be pleased.”

“ _I am, sir.”_  Her voice sounds; it’s sharp in its tinny, metallic, echoing inflection. There’s a natural dry wit to the tone that’s oddly endearing.

Stiles laughs, and laughs harder when Mystery ManBot Friend looks even more perplexed.

)

Stiles is slipping into bed, and ManBot is standing awkwardly when Stiles finally asks, “so, what’s your name?”

ManBot makes another face. “I don’t know.” He finally forces out.

And just like that, sleep is the last thing on Stiles’ mind, and instead he’s much more interested in examining ManBot’s hardrive.

“I can help with that.” Stiles tells him, only half-sure.

)

ManBot doesn’t ask why Stiles has a fully functioning, HALECorp equipped tech room, because it’s probably pretty obvious. Built from scratch with pieces of HALETech machinery that he’s collected since high school. But it works like the newest, best super computer. AL-5 is part of the mainframe, and it’s wired through his apartment.

“Just, on the table.” Stiles says, and ManBot obeys. “Your ‘name,’” Stiles surrounds it in air quotes, “should be located on the inner panel of your back.” ManBot strips off the hideous polo with record speed, and Stiles’ eyes are drawn to what he hadn’t noticed before. Another tattoo, darker and a little larger. The same set of swirls as well as a barcode. Stiles makes a curious noise as his fingers reach out.

Now that he knows, he can feel the subtle differences in ManBot compared to an actual man. The skin is too warm, never cooling but never too hot—just right, practically. He’s an older model, as Stiles can feel some parts of ‘muscle’ that feel harsh beneath the synthetic skin, like metal rather than tissue. But, he’s probably the newest model Stiles has been this close to, and that’s exciting.

“Uh, roll over.” Stiles asks, and ManBot obeys. “Right, okay.” Stiles runs his fingertips along ManBot’s back, tracing the slight definition of the way his back stretches. Finally, though, he finds a spot that’s odd to the touch—colder, more firm, a button to unlatch the panel. He presses down, and ManBot actually lets out a gasp before falling still and silent again. “Just, relax.” He says more for his own benefit.

He peers into the panel, and notices it’s far too dusty. Using the greatest of care, he grabs a bottle of canned air and sprays the wires and buttons inside, untilmost of the dust is in his nose rather than in the panel.

“Awesome, cool, how ya feeling?” Stiles asks. ManBot has nothing to say, so Stiles carries on. He grabs a small silver rod, and prods at thecrisscrossedwires, but doesn’t press anything. It isn’t until he looks back at the panel’s door that he finds what he’s looking for: scratched and faded, but still readable, ManBot’s name. (Or, rather, his model code.)

D3R3K

Stiles snorts, because sometimes he forgets he’s in the cheesiest sci-fi movie ever. And it’s things like this that remind him.

“I’m closing it again now, okay, Derek?” Stiles says. And he’s barely got the panel door snapped back into place—and barely has a moment to spare to watch the sickly fascinating way the skin grows back to hide the seam of the panel—before Derek is on his back again, sitting up, glaring and clenching his fists.

“ _Derek_.” He seethes, not at Stiles but down at his lap. “ _Derek_.” He says again, less venomous and more morose.

Stiles watches with queasy curiosity as Derek slowly lies back. Stiles wonders if bots can have existential crises as well, and figures that’s probably what’s going on with Derek.

“Uh, do you want to sleep here for the night? I’ve never really dealt with a bot on my own, so I don’t know.. you know.. how to.. take care of them.”

Derek blinks.

“I’ll leave you alone, then. Just, don’t touch anything, cuz this took forever. Either ask AL-5 for help or come get me, o-okay?”

Stiles backs out of the room and doesn’t let the door close all the way. He stares at Derek through the crack between threshold and door before scurrying to his room. He dives under the covers, jittery with excitement and torn up inside with sorrow—bots, to him, have always seemed like sad things. But never had he encountered one so vividly, and it made him ache, made him think of his mom and his dad.

)

The next morning, Derek hasn’t moved. However, part of his arm has fallen off, barely connected by wires.

 

 

Stiles takes one look at it and promises, “I can fix that.”

)

Stiles ends up having to shut down Derek to fix it, because the more he pokes and prods at the bot, the more problems he finds. Which makes sense, since Derek has been out of ‘operation’ for almost two years. With no maintenance, any bot would fall apart, no matter the quality. Stiles promises him over and over again that it’ll be okay, even though Derek seems to have no problem shutting down and letting Stiles do whatever.

Stiles, as he fiddles with cords and plugs that’ll shut down Derek but keep him ‘active,’ is sure to tell Derek what an awful character flaw this is, and that it could easily result in his demise.

Derek doesn’t say “I trust you,” but that’s all Stiles can discern from the look in his eyes.

Stiles reminds him that two days a trust does not make, no matter how good the hot chocolate or how comfortable the sweats.

Derek’s face goes slack in the midst of shut down just as Stiles is sure he was going to smile.

)

“ _Is everything alright, sir?”_

Stiles nods slowly, eyes fixated on Derek’s motionless form. “I’m letting him rest.” Bots, for the most part, are like computers. They need breaks, they need to just be turned off and left alone for a while. They need to be rebooted, restarted, rewired and cleaned and cared for. They’re almost exactly like computers, except they walk and have thumbs.

Stiles knows that Derek had been in that garbage heap at least a year, and that models similar to his came out a year before that—so that’s probably at least two years without a proper shut down. It’s a miracle, Stiles thinks, that he was functioning so well.

“ _Sir, Scott called earlier and asked to make plans. Should I let him know you are otherwise occupied?”_

“Nah,” Stiles answers after a moment’s deliberation. “Just, tell him, next Friday.”

A week should be enough time to figure out Derek, find him a place—either in Stiles’ home or out—and enough time for Stiles to finish creating the holographic representation of AL-5.

Stiles focuses on Derek again, watches the new wires—ones he’d actually paid for, funnily enough, bought them on impulse—snap into place with dexterity that he could never hope to have. For all that he is a technical scientist, Stiles is also disastrously clumsy. AL-5 and other components of the super computer, though, are not. So it balances out.

He watches the skin sew itself back together, and watches the way cogs work in a slow update, a slow test of functions, though Derek remains shut down.

Stiles even dares to comb his fingers through Derek’s hair, sympathy ringing in his chest like a church bell again.

“I can fix you,” he says. “I can make you even  _better_.” He promises.

)

He waits until dinner is started to wake Derek. As a bot, he may not need to eat, but Stiles would feel bad to not offer. The start up is quicker than the shut down, like an old computer wiped clean and refurbished. Derek’s fingers and toes twitch first, then his knees and elbows shake, running up his shoulders and settling as tension coiled in his stomach. His mouth moves, and despite not actually taking in air, his chest moves like he’s breathing. Derek’s ears even twitch once or twice before icy blue eyes flicker open, and turn a startling red.

Stiles blinks and there’s a fist balled up at the collar of his shirt, and his back is a huge blossoming bruise as he’s slammed up against the wall.

“Woah, woah woah, dude, calm down.”

Derek growls against his mouth, but it isn’t sexy and that’s a crying shame. “Who are you?”

Well fuck.

Stiles  _so_  didn’t fix it.

“I’m Stiles. We met the other night. At a dump.”

Derek glares at him, hand still precariously close to his throat. Derek’s eyes shift, though, still red but not as angry. “What did you do to me?” He grinds out.

Stiles relaxes. “I found you at the dump—well, really, more like you found me—and when I came in this morning you were kind of falling apart—not emotionally, not that that’s a bad thing, but like, this arm was falling off! So I just shut you down, let you rest, ran some repairs. You’re almost as good as new. I didn’t—?” Stiles falters, and he feels his feel leave the ground as Derek not only pushes him against the wall but holds him against it, up and off the floor. “I didn’t want to go poking around in your head, I let that be.”

Derek’s face contorts, but there’s no longer a delay, a creak of tired cogs under synthetic skin. “Thank you.” He says, stunted but genuine.

“So, uh. I know you don’t need to eat. But, dinner?”

Derek doesn’t nod. He backs away and lets Stiles’ feet touch the ground, but he doesn’t nod. He adjusts the sweats and disregards the polo, but he doesn’t nod.

“Dude?”

“I need to go.” Derek announces to the room at large. Stiles scoffs and endures the dirty look he gets because of it. “I need to go.”

“I don’t think you mean the bathroom.” Stiles drawls. “And there’s no way in hell I’m letting you  _leave_.” Stiles looks him up and down. “Shirtless, for one. I don’t think that’s exactly regulation.” Stiles crosses his arms and leans against the wall to hide the way his knees are quaking. “Plus, I’m pretty sure you were  _dumped_. I don’t think you’re  _supposed_  to be wandering around. Not alone, not unless you’re registered, right?”

Derek’s face pulls into a deeper, angrier expression. “I need to go.”

“Go where?” Stiles throws his hands in the air. “Do what?”

Derek doesn’t answer but Stiles is willing to bet his fake college diploma that ‘stuff’ is on the tip of Derek’s tongue.

“You’re impossible.” Stiles says. “I’m going to hazard a guess, here, and feel free to tell me if I’m way off.”

Derek nods, the slightest twitch of a strong jaw on heavy shoulders.

“Do you have some sort of sick, twisted revenge you need to cash in, is  _that_ why you need to go?”

Their eyes meet, metal blue with hints of red circuitry versus amber lit up by innate curiosity. They’re an interesting contrast, in that Stiles feels they aren’t very different at all.

Derek’s silence says it all. Stiles’ sigh says more.

“Fine. But dinner first.”

)

Turns out, it’s dinner first and then more updates. Oh, please, really, it’s no trouble at all, Stiles  _insists_. And Derek  _resists_. For all he’s worth. Finally, the argument comes to a point when Stiles launches a plate at Derek’s face, and he catches it an inch from his nose.

“I’m trying to help you! I don’t know what sort of vendetta you have or against who, but I’m trying to help you!”

Derek growls, the rumble of machinery a threat. “I don’t need your help.”

“Oh yeah? Then why’d you come to me in the dump? Why’d you let me shut you down, let me fix you  _before_.”

“I wasn’t in my right mind.”

Stiles doesn’t say ‘you don’t  _have_  a right mind’ because that’s a low blow, and he’d never stoop to that level. “What do you plan to do? Just march out of here, guns and HALECorp logos a’blazing? Waltz right into the fine establishment you probably want to burn down and  _do it_? You think it’s just going to be  _that easy_ to get what you want?”

Derek falls silent, and after a few minutes pass he sets the plate down carefully.

Stiles isn’t done, yet. “I’m not like other people, okay? It can’t be that hard to figure out that I  _understand—_!”

Derek snarls an interruption. “ _You_  understand—?”

“Yeah!” But Stiles isn’t afraid, now with adrenaline pumping through his veins so fast if it stops his heart will probably collapse. “I  _know_  what it’s like to be an outsider. Maybe I don’t know your life, or your vendetta, or  _you._ But I know the feelings. I’m no stranger to being a  _freak_.” Stiles gasps for air as emotions—ones like sympathy and sorrow rather than anger and rage—rise up in his throat. “Not everyone is going to be so nice. Almost  _no one_  will, these days. All bots are to people are  _things_ , objects to be played with and to be looked at and to be ordered around.”

Derek’s eyes are bright red, fiery and Stiles  _finally_  feels like they’re getting somewhere.

“But I don’t think that. I never have and I never will.” He declares, triumphant. “I don’t care  _what_  you’re planning to do, but whatever it is, I’m going to help.”

Derek regards him with a stare less menacing—but still riddled with man pain—by the second. “Fine.” He huffs.

“Good. You’re doing dishes.”

)

“ _Sir, are you sure this is a good idea?”_

“Honestly, AL-5, no.”

“ _You inspire such confidence, sir.”_

“I should probably change that, huh?”

“ _Change what, sir?”_

“The whole ‘sir’ thing.” Stiles taps his chin and twists the nobs and presses some buttons on the main frame. “I don’t think Scott would be as enthused if you were doting on me and calling me sir.”

“ _To be far, sir, that is what I’m programmed for.”_

Stiles grins. “And you do a lovely job of it, AL-5. But maybe a revamp is in order?”

“ _Whatever you like, sir.”_

Stiles pats the monitor before him. “Besides, you’ll always be my girl, right?”

“ _Of course, sir.”_

Stiles brings up a window, his finger rolling lazily over the mouseball installed in the huge keyboard he’s sitting at. He tampers with settings, clicking this and that, lowering one level and raising another. AL-5’s hologram is a gorgeous, spunky, young brunette—and Stiles feels it’s fitting to give her a personality that matches. She isn’t his own personal Jeeves, despite whatever his original intentions had been when he decided to install a supercomputer into his home.

“Ready?”

“ _As I’ll ever be, sir.”_

Stiles grins. “There’s that dry wit setting I installed ages ago.”

AL-5 doesn’t respond, and instead Stiles saves all his data and presses a button simply labeled ‘go.’ It has a myriad of functions, ranging from setting off the smoke alarm in Apartment 2b, dialing 911 should the case may be, or even simply starting the coffee pot. In this particular instance, it transfers all the recent data changes into AL-5 as well as sending her holographic composition data into the air, bringing her to life, pixel by pixel like an old school Disney movie, right before Stiles’ eyes. He grins as he watches her eyes spark, and her posture relax—like a real person, not tense and trained but chill, a young woman perfect for a young man like Scott.

“Hello Stiles.” Her voice is the same—no,  _better_. Less metallic and fake, however familiar that was. This is real, and if Stiles didn’t think of her like an older sister-slash-computer, he might be enamored with her as well. But that’s Scott’s job, not Stiles’.

“You look perfect.” Stiles tells her as he stands. She’s dressed in dark blue jeans that hug her legs, and a thick brown overcoat accented with a scarf and tussled hair. She isn’t tangible, but Stiles congratulates himself because she sure as fuck looks like it.

“Thanks.” She replies, not the least bit bashful but overwhelmingly grateful. “So, Scott will be here tomorrow?”

Stiles nods, and pokes at her with a grin. She fizzles in some points, weaker data, edits to be made—but for the most part, beyond ‘the most part,’ she’s scarily realistic.

As evidenced by Derek’s rumbling growl that fills the room when he walks in.

“Bad dog.” Stiles admonishes before his can stop himself. “It’s just AL-5. But we can’t really call you that.” Stiles pitches his voice. “You’re a real girl!”

Al-5 gets the joke, but only because she’s programmed with Stiles’ humor. “Alison will do just fine.”

Stiles grins wider, and looks at Derek. “Isn’t this cool!?”

Derek doesn’t smile—he hasn’t since that half smile in the midst of shut down, two days prior. But he nods. “Impressive.”

“Self-taught.” Stiles adds, far too proud to care about being overly prideful. Derek doesn’t comment though, and instead slowly approaches. Like a cautious animal. He reaches out a hand and cups Alison’s holographic face. “Maybe in a few years I can build a bot of her.”

Derek’s face tightens with sadness. He says nothing, though, and retracts his hand.

Alison watches with curious eyes, ones like Derek’s: computerized and analytical, not harsh but definitively inhuman. Stiles, for a moment, is worried he’s about to have started an all-outtech war between his rogue bot and not-quite-legal hologram. He gulps nervously, but Alison starts to flicker, and he sighs.

“I’ve gotta find the right balance.” He mutters, more to himself. “It can’t be  _that_ hard to keep you stable for longer.”

Alison shrugs, and the movement takes her completely out of focus. “It’s not so bad. You’ll figure it out.”

Stiles shoots her another smile. “Ready for bed?” He asks, because it sounds better than getting shoved back onto a hardrive. However massive the hardrive may be, it still can’t be all that pleasant. But Alison is a trooper, and simply nods. In the blink of an eye, she’s gone, back on his mainframe.

“You made her from scratch?” Derek asks after a beat of silence.

Stiles beams. “Yeah. I’ve been dumpster diving for years, and you’d be surprised at what people throw out when it works just fine with a bit of tuning. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but no other model like Alison exists—at first she was just a basic computer mechanism, a monotone brain, a droid meant to say ’yes sir, of course sir, no sir.’ She was just supposed to be a glorified smartphone, basically. But I made her better.”

Derek nods, looking intrigued. “How do you know so much?”

Stiles flushes red and laughs. “My friend works for HALECorp—as a janitor and part time lackey, but still. He gets me blueprints, designs that got tossed out. And this girl who works there—Lydia Martin. She likes him, likes that he knows her coffee order by heart. She spoils him with intel, which gets passed onto me.” Stiles strokes his fingers over the keyboard.

“Can he get architectural layouts? Of the building?”

Stiles freezes. “Of HALECorp?”

“Yes.”

“… Probably.” Stiles answers slowly. “Why?” He asks, though he knows, it’s stupid to even try and act like he doesn’t. “You want to break into HALECorp.”

Derek bristles. “I want to take down the bastards running HALECorp.” He says with more venom than Stiles thought one man could muster. “Take them down and  _destroy_  them.”

Stiles approaches slowly, just as Derek had, like a cautious animal. “I think I can help with that.”

)

Scott shows up, just as planned, on Friday.

After the usual greeting of “what’s up,” and “nothing much, you?” and a pleasant if awkwardly long bro-hug, Stiles leads Scott into his tech room.

“It’s a surprise. It’s literally ten feet away,” Stiles snaps.

Scott whines in place. “Can’t you just tell me what it is?”

“Dude, really. Just come on.”

Scott whines again and stomps his feet, but follows all the same. Stiles gives him a wicked grin, and flicks the lights on. “I present, the new and improved AL-5—better known these days as Alison.”

Scott gapes, and it’s worth it. Stiles is the best friend ever.

“Dude.” Scott stage whispers, staring at the finally perfected hologram, without a glitch or twitch. She looks real, intimidatingly so. “For me?”

Stiles half nods. “I mean, she’s still my supercomputer. And I still think it’s ridiculously unhealthy that you’re in  _love_  with  _my_  supercomputer. But hey, I make the best stuff. So, yeah, you have my blessing. Or whatever.”

Scott surges forward, and cups her face though he can’t feel a thing. “You’re amazing.”

“Thanks.” Stiles and Alison reply in unison.

Stiles watches as Alison’s carefully crafted hands, almost eerily iridescent, rise to cover Scott’s hands. They look perfect, tragic but fitting. Besides, Stiles meant what he said about making her into a bot—all he would need was time, effort, the right resources. But he would do it if it was the last thing he ever managed to make.

“I’m gonna give you two a minute. But please, no sex.” He walks backwards out of the room, and lets the door close almost completely. When he turns, he’s face-to-face with Derek.

“You turned your supercomputer servant into a hologram because your best friend is in love with it? Her?” Derek asks.

“It’s not really uncommon.” Stiles pauses. “Granted, it’s more unusual to turn her into a hologram instead of a bot. But I’m not exactly rolling in dough. Once I am,  _then_  it’ll be complete and I can make them both happy.”

Derek tenses. “How can they even love each other—she isn’t human.”

Stiles looks at Derek, curiously and closely. “You’re not human, but you can still love.”

Derek looks ready to disagree, but only opens and closes his mouth once. “Not anymore.” Is what he finally says, minutes later to the tune of Alison’s first genuine laugh on the other side of the door.

“You can still love.” Stiles emphasizes, leaning just a hair closer. “Whether or not you choose to is your business.” And, just like that, he leaves a startled Derek behind to start dinner.

)

“So, Scott, my buddy, my pal, my brother from another mother, mister from another sister, my—?”

“What sort of things do I have to steal this time.” Scott asks around a mouthful of pasta. Stiles makes a disgusted, but amused, face. “No, really, just tell me.”

“Well. I need. Structural blueprints.”

Scott just stares at him blankly.

“Like, of the building. Diagrams of how the HALECorp building is constructed.”

As if queued, Scott’s eyes flicker to the shirtless Derek sitting beside Stiles at the tiny dining table.

“Yes, it may or may not have to do with the man sitting beside me.”

Scott just chews slowly.

“And it may or may not involve breaking into HALECorp and possibly killing people.”

Scott sets down his fork and sighs. He says “Stiles” the same way his dad used to. “Really?” Scott asks.

“Really.” Stiles nods, eyes focused on the interesting curls of his glorified spaghetti.

Scott sighs again, and Stiles wonders if he’s ever been the cause of some of those wrinkles popping up on his creased expression. He wonders if Alison is enough to repay him. “I don’t know how you get mixed up in these kinds of things. But yeah, I think I can do that. Lydia is pretty pissed at Mrs. Argent, so.”

Stiles doesn’t miss the way Derek tenses. But he doesn’t comment.

“I’ll have them in a few days, okay?”

“Awesome. Great, seriously. I’ll cook you dinner and let you come see Alison. I could probably install her on your phone, if you wanted.”

Scott brightens a bit.

)

After Scott is gone and Alison is resting back in the hardrive, Stiles corners Derek in the bathroom. Which maybe wasn’t the brightest of ideas, but it’s the best he’s got.

“So. Argents.”

Derek tenses the same way he did at dinner.

“Some history there?” Stiles asks in a drawl. He’s ready to roll over and bare his belly if need be. But until that absolute minute, he’s going to push, and push, and get some fucking answers.

Derek nods, wiping oil from his skin, soft and freshly cleaned.

“Something I should know?” Stiles asks again, softer this time.

“No.” Derek bites out.

“Are you sure? Because I need to make additional plans if you’re ultimate revenge is to take out  _the entire Argent family_.”

Derek stiffens. “Not all of them are bad.”

Stiles can’t help his scoff. “Right, and HALECorp is the same family friendly business it was ten years ago, making toys and wheelchairs for the elderly. Right. It’s  _not_  a psychotic, manipulative corporation anymore, of course not.”

Derek looks caught between rage and sadness. “It’s the Argents that did it. It wasn’t always theirs.”

“I know. It isn’t ARGENTCorp.” Stiles leans against the door frame. “So, spill.”

Derek eyes him. “Not tonight.” He declares, brushing past Stiles in a way that’s both rude and vulnerable. “Soon.” He promises, already heading to the makeshift bed Stiles threw together for him on the couch. Derek complains about the stress of the metal table, and Stiles doesn’t have the heart to say it’s probably more than just the table that’s making the wires and cogs in his back ache.

“Alright.” Stiles says to the empty bathroom.

)

Scott shows up a week later with the blueprints.

“Just.” Scott isn’t staying for dinner, but Stiles is in fact installing a version of Alison on his phone. “Don’t get yourself killed.” Is his great imparting wisdom, along with a strong hug before he’s gone.

Stiles watches him go, and wonders if that’s a promise he can keep.

)

Derek slaves over the blue prints day and night. And even though he doesn’t have to, Stiles stays up as much as he can to help. Most of the time he just watches, but occasionally he can lean forward and point out the new levels and new layers of the building that have been added since (Stiles’ assumption here) Derek was last inside.

Derek chews on his lip and growls every time Stiles berates him for it.

“We could go for an underground attack. Stealthy.” Stiles mentions, bringing out layouts of other underground tunnels. Some he helped to build and others he simply watched be built. “They’ve kind of become security nazis, but there’s so many tunnels that I don’t see them funding security for—?”

“They would. Because they know.”

Stiles blinks, coffee steaming deliciously in his face. It’s two in the morning. “They know?”

“They didn’t destroy me.”

Stiles nods slowly.

“They left me broken. Alone. They know.”

Stiles sighs, a great heaving one garbled by coffee. “So, they know you’re coming to enact revenge. We may as well just waltz right in and let security arrest us.”

Derek nods.

“No, dude, I was kidding.” Stiles sets the mug down, half full as it is. “Whether or not they know you’re back from the metaphorical dead or not, you can’t just go right in and expect it to work like all those cool action movies.”

Derek—Stiles swears on his life—Derek  _smiles_. “And coming up with an overly elaborate plan of attack is going to work? Just like the movies?”

Stiles feels stunned, dazed,  _smacked_  in the face by the weight of Derek smiling at him, because of him. He nods, though. “Duh. Because plans are the best thing ever. Especially when they’re complex and unthinkable.”

Derek looks down at the blueprints again. “Why are you helping me.” He asks after a terse silence filled only by noisy slurps.

Stiles sets down the mug again, now empty. “I told you before. Not everyone sympathizes with bots. But I do, and honestly if I hadn’t noticed the tattoos, I would’ve just assumed you were some freaky quiet guy.” Stiles curls the blanket in his lap around him tighter. “But. Just. It’s the right thing to do.”

“You don’t know that.” It sounds like both a threat and a promise. And a lie.

“I  _do_ , though.” Stiles insists. “You let me shut you down within like  _two hours_  of knowing me.” Stiles leans forward to stress his point. “You trust me, and I trust you—because that’s what two people do.”

Derek doesn’t look satisfied.

“Plus, it isn’t as if taking out HALECorp—or whoever runs it,” Stiles amends at the oncoming glare, “taking the  _Argents_  out, that’s not exactly a moral hardship for me. They’re terrible people, and they  _deserve_  to be knocked down the peg. Knocked off the game completely.” Stiles reclines again. “I maybe don’t have the deep dark past that you do, but I want revenge against them just as much as you.”

Derek stares, and Stiles takes comfort in the soft calculating blue of his eyes. “Okay.”

)

“You can go to sleep.” Derek says, watching Stiles’ eyes droop lower.

“I’m a valuable asset to the operation.”

Derek doesn’t smile, but he wants to. “Sleep.”

Stiles meets his gaze halfheartedly. “No.” He argues as he strands and hugs the blanket closer. The nights are getting colder, and Stiles is always reluctant to turn up the heat. “What if you make up some grand plan without me? Then I can’t steal the credit when we save the world.”

Derek does snort at that. It makes Stiles grin and shuffle over. “Sleep.” Derek says again.

“You sound like a zombie, dude.” Stiles says as he falls onto the couch, toes nudging at the blueprints. “C’mon, talk me through your current plan so I can tell you all the ways it’s wrong.”

Derek sighs, but complies. And Stiles manages to make two major corrections before falling asleep. His drool oozes slow and damp onto Derek’s shoulder, and Derek ignores it, eyes focused intently on the plans laid out before him, and most definitely not on Stiles.

)

“How long would it take?”

Stiles groans for the millionth time. “I can’t say.” He repeats. “I don’t even have any sort of structure to start with, there’s no way to get an estimate.”

Scott pouts, holding Alison’s hand.

“As soon as I can get a body for her, I can give you a time frame. But I’m not gonna let you steal a bot from your work just so you can have some fun.”

Alison makes a disgruntled face, and Stiles is unsure whether it’s the natural girl in her, or Stiles’ own distaste in the idea of Scott “having some fun.”

Scott sighs. “Sorry dude.”

“Whatever.” Stiles waves off the apology. “I get it.” He kind of does, sort of. Not really. “I’m gonna go see if Derek needs help.” He says, both in truth and as an excuse to get away from Scott’s enraptured stare directed at Alison.

“You lasted longer, last time.” Derek says as Stiles slips into the kitchen.

“Huh?”

“Dealing with them.” Derek clarifies.

Stiles ‘oh’s. “I dunno. There’s only so long a guy can take, you know?”

Derek shrugs.

Stiles feels like he hit a very vague nerve. “I mean, it’s not as if I know what it feels like.” He peeks over his shoulder to the slightly ajar door.

“You will.”

When Stiles turns, Derek is in his space.

“You’ll know, what it’s like.”

Stiles gulps. “Yeah?” He asks, eyes dropping to Derek’s lightly parted lips; he’s a young guy, it’s not as though he’s just going to ignore Derek’s innate smoldering hotness. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to act on it, either. “Have you?”

Derek’s mouth snaps shut, the audible click of teeth hitting. “Yes.” He replies with a tight voice. “A long time ago.”

Stiles doesn’t press.

)

Stiles pokes and prods at his face in the mirror. He doesn’t even jump when Derek appears beside him, shirtless as always. Since none of Stiles’ shirts fit comfortably, Derek has forgone them completely. And it’s both an improvement and not.

“What are you doing.”

“Question marks, Derek, they’re a lovely thing,” Stiles responds, tugging at a mole on his chin. “I dunno.” He admits. “Sometimes I just look at myself.”

Derek quietly enters the bathroom and crowds Stiles around the sink. “What do you see?”

Stiles shrugs. “I see my mom’s eyes and my dad’s wrinkles.”

Derek scowls. “You’re young.”

He shrugs again, and resolutely doesn’t shiver when Derek’s fingers begin tracing his face as well.

“What do you see?” Stiles asks.

“A brand.”

Stiles can see his eyes trained on the barcode.

“A machine.”

Stiles looks at him, but Derek’s gaze remains fixed in the mirror.

“A mo—”

“No.” Stiles cuts across him. “No.” He starts to shove Derek out of the bathroom. “You’re not.” He assures.

Derek looks mildly amused. “How would you know?”

“If you were a monster you would’ve killed me by now.” Stiles states breezily. “There’s no reason to keep me around if you  _are_  a monster, only hellbent on destroying the Argents. So.”

“It could all be a ruse.”

Stiles laughs. “Right, because a ruse like this takes three weeks and counting.”

“I like to be thorough.”

Stiles doesn’t falter though, not for a moment. “Whatever, Sourbot, you’re stuck with me.”

)

Stiles stares at Derek intently. Finally, Derek allows an exasperated  _“what?”_

“If I dump water on you, would you short circuit?”

Derek freezes in his marking of the blueprints. “That is probably the stupidest question I’ve ever been asked,” He declares. “Stiles, you  _built_  a supercomputer, I think you know the answer.”

Stiles pouts. “You take all the fun out of everything.”

Derek nods. “It’s in my handbook.”

)

“Are you drinking?”

Stiles looks up. “No.” He’s not, honest. He’s really just holding the bottle in his hands.

“I’m not stupid.” Derek says, sitting beside Stiles on the bed.

“I’m not.” Stiles stresses again. He scrubs a hand through his buzzcut hair and chews his lip. “It was my dad’s,” he starts,“after my mom died, my dad drank a lot.” He twists the bottle of Jack by its neck and looks off into a mental abyss. “It wasn’t necessarily a  _bad_  thing. But it really wasn’t a  _good_  thing.” He wipes at his eyes.

He jumps when a warm arm curls over his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Derek says in a soft voice, a delicate voice that Stiles has never heard. He looks over to see Derek’s head bowed in shadows, the moonlight streaming in casting intricate shadows over his face and sharp cheekbones. “I know. I know what it’s like. To lose someone.”

He falls silent, as though unable to say more, and Stiles just leans against him for comfort.

)

Stiles rubs at his eyes for a moment, then points at a vent. “That goes over the cafeteria.”

Derek nods.

“Dangerous. Too crowded, too easy to get noticed.”

“We’ll be in a vent.”

“Yeah, but Scott said that the whole cafeteria is huge, and that the airs vents take up the entire ceiling. It’s gotta echo like a motherfucker in there.”

Derek, after a few moments of considered silence, begrudgingly agrees. Stiles shuffles closer and traces his fingers along a route he’s traced at least a million times. “This one is our best bet, I just. Something’s off about it.”

While Stiles’ contemplates what’s rubbing him the wrong way in the plan, Derek observes the other aborted plans. Pencil marks are strewn across the blueprint, and they’ll probably have to unroll another copy of the layout here soon. But, before he can suggest such a thing, a loud and obscure _grooowaaaaallrrr_  sounds.

Stiles freezes, mid-mumbling-sentence. “Uh, stomach.” He laughs nervously. “I haven’t eaten…” He taps his chin. “At all, I guess.”

Derek stiffens beside him then stands. He ignores Stiles, even as he’s following into the kitchen and even as Stiles slaps his hands away from a pan and cooking oil. “You need to eat.”

Stiles takes the pan and puts it away. “AL-5 can heat up some ramen.”

Derek shakes his head and pushes Stiles out of the kitchen. “It’s fine.” He grumbles out.

“Dude, it’s basically the entire reason I built her!” A moment’s pause is taken before Stiles adds a sheepish, “no offense, Alison.”

“ _None taken, sir.”_  She assures.

Stiles jerks his finger in the vague direction of the mainframe. “See?”

“Well now you have two bots to do it for you,” Derek says, sounding so quiet and his voice hitched at an odd tone, he seems what can only be described as “miffed.”

Stiles stops him again, actually tossing the stirring spoon Derek grabbed back into the sink. “No, no no.” He scolds. “We’ve talked about this before, remember. You’re not just a bot.”

“I—?”

“Not just to  _me_. You’re a fuck of a lot more than that.” Stiles grabs at Derek’s arms until they’re facing each other.

Derek looks more upset than pleased, but eventually his face twists into what Stiles chooses to interpret as a grateful but confused expression. “But  _why_.” Derek asks, inflection barely there.

Stiles gapes for a moment before stumbling along an answer. “It’s just how I’ve always thought. I mean, okay. If you want to get a literal definition, you  _are_  a bot, because you aren’t made of human parts. But. Like.” He makes a distressed noise. “Bots were designed to act as humans, and sure, in the beginning bots were basically the things you see in all those seventies flicks where it’s square boxes held together by wire and tube and go around in a sharp voice saying  _‘Of. Course. Sir.’_  with awkward pauses and weird jerky movements.”

Derek eyes him. “You make a lot of weird jerky movements.”

Stiles blinks, mouth open to continue in his rant. But his brain basically short circuits—ha ha—because  _Derek made a joke_.

Stiles breaks out into a grin, and is so stunned by the idea of  _Derek making a joke_  that he loses track of time, and zones back in on Earth when a piping hot omelet is shoved under his nose. Instead of arguing, though, Stiles shares Derek’s small grin and tells him thanks.

)

Derek wakes up from a self-instigated shut down to find Stiles standing over him. “How long was I sleeping?”

Stiles laughs. “Not long. The world hasn’t fallen to any worse rubble and the Argents haven’t knocked at my door and asked for you. I think it’s okay to relax.”

“It’s never okay.” Derek says quietly as he sits up. “Not with Argents in charge.”

Stiles looks at him, eyes wide and childlike in their curiosity. “One of these days, you’re gonna tell me what happened. In full detail, no excuses.”

Derek meets his gaze without falter. “Okay.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

They lapse into silence and Stiles motions to the living room. Like every night, he lays out the blueprints and settles into the couch. Before Stiles can launch intowhy Plan Revision Number 143 is going to fail, though,Derek speaks first.

“Tell me about your family.”

“Why?”

Derek seems to mull reasons over in his head for a long while. “Consider it advance payment, your story in exchange for mine.”

Stiles sinks further into the couch. “My dad was a cop and my mom was a nurse. She worked with Scott’s mom, s’how we met.” Stiles sighs and falls quiet as he rolls the blueprints back up and stashes them with the notebooks of their plans. “After the Argents took over, there were rumors about unauthorized testing in the medical fields; people were saying that medicines were being given to patients that weren’t approved, and weren’t safe.

“I think.. I think my mom knew about it. She was a favorite, y’know? The nurse who could make everyone feel a little bit better about their shitty situations, no matter what.” Stiles’ hands, shaking, fall into his lap. “And then she got sick. The other doctors at the hospital never told us what from, but she got sick and it got bad  _fast_.”

Derek bumps his knee against Stiles’.

“Scott’s mom, Melissa.. She.. put her out of her misery. Heavy doses of muscle relaxers and other,” he laughs wetly, “y’know, medical shit. And she was gone.” Stiles doesn’t realize he’s crying until his hands are wet with the fallen tears. “After that is when dad started drinking. A bottle of jack every couple days, he said it helped him focus on casework, but.” Stiles shrugs and tugs at the sleeves of hit shirt to wipe his eyes. “I don’t think he was lying, but he wasn’t telling the truth.

“He didn’t drink forever, though. I mean, he still drank a lot, but he started looking into mom’s sickness, looking over doctor reports and examinations, and the autopsy, and security cameras—he left virtually no stone unturned.” Stiles swells with a rush of pride, and smiles lightly at Derek. “He wanted to know.”

Derek’s own hands are balled in his lap, jaw clenched but eyes oddly sympathetic.

“But, one day.. he was gone too. No body, no signs of an intruder or an attack. He was just gone.” Stiles falls back onto the couch, stretching out the exhaustion in his arms and sides. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Thank you,” Derek tells him in a gently rasping voice. “I’m sorry.”

Stiles looks at Derek, and waits until their eyes lock. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Derek shakes his head furiously, “it isn’t. It never will be.”

“And that’s why we’re breaking in and taking them down.” Stiles answers simply, feeling tired but refreshed. “Right?”

A silence stretches, before Derek tells him, “right.”

)

Stiles collapses beside Derek on the couch, as per routine. “Hot chocolate?”

Derek accepts the mug and grins around his sip.

“So, I think we’re getting close to a solid plan.” Stiles comments, peeking at the layouts of the building. “I think if we—?”

“You do realize you’re not breaking in with me.” Derek asks idly.

“What.”

“It’s too risky.”

“So?” Stiles scoots to glare at Derek properly.

“I’m a bot, I’m almost indestructible. You are not.”

“I don’t care.”

Derek makes a frustrated noise into his cocoa mug, sending the scent of chocolate spritzing through the air.

“I’m serious. I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

“Sometimes that’s the only way to do things. The Argents are my fault, and I have to fix it.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Derek knows he has to explain.

Stiles won’t settle for anything less.

“I’m waiting.” Stiles reminds, his own cocoa abandoned.

“It’s my fault that the Argents are in HALECorp. And I’m going to make it right.”

Stiles wants to press. He’s tired of walking on eggshells. “Why is it your fault?”

“Because I made a stupid mistake.” Derek bites back. “I thought I was in love and it destroyed all that I had.”

Stiles, at least, looks surprised.

“It’s my fault that the Argents are in power, and I’m going to take them out.”

“And I’m going to help you.”

Derek makes the same noise as before. “It’s not safe.”

“I don’t care.”

Derek glares. “Maybe I do.”

Stiles opens his mouth, but words don’t come tumbling out like usual.

“Maybe I’m not ready to lose the only good thing that’s happened to me in almost three years. Maybe you don’t need to help me, and instead stay here and stay safe.”

Stiles still looks stunned. He’s still silent.

“I know that—that the Argents hurt you too. But you aren’t immortal.”

Stiles gulps, his throat dry. “Neither are you.”

“Close.”

“I—you aren’t talking me out of this.” Stiles leans in close and lets the blanket slide off his lap. He jabs a finger in Derek’s face. “You can’t stop me. You _won’t_.”

Stiles’ amber eyes bore into Derek’s reddish blue ones, all defiance and utter stubborn childishness. It’s admirable, on some level. And reckless on another. Stiles’ hair is getting a little long, sticking up at odd angles and a darker brown than when Derek first met him. Derek is unchanged except for being cleaner.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” Stiles snarls out, and sure enough surges forward and stumbles into a kiss that’s too much teeth and not enough lip. Derek steadies him with heavy hands, tugging him up and off the couch. “Okay?”

“No.” But Derek returns the kiss again and again anyways. Because despite what he’s learned, what he’s been through, he can’t resist Stiles in his entirety.

Stiles’ hands, such long spindly fingers, come up and all but claim Derek’s face as their lips andtongueand teeth fight back and forth in a kiss. Stiles gasps into his mouth, moans against him and shoves him back on the couch with a force Derek hadn’t yet known of Stiles. “You’re so stupid,” Stiles moans to him, stretching like a cat on Derek’s body, nails digging like claws into Derek’s skin, creating pain that only barely registers.

Derek grunts and grabs Stiles by the hips, heaving him up into his arms. Effortlessly, Derek carries Stiles only by his hips; it helps that Stiles curls around him like a monkey to a tree, arms locking around Derek’s neck and thighs trapping around Derek’s own.

“Stupid,” Stiles says again, over and over in between kisses. “You’re stupid and I love you and  _fucking Christ_.” Derek relishes the wordless but loud moan that echoes from Stiles’ chest at the bite of an ear. “You stupid—!” But the rant, no doubt a furthering of Derek’s evident stupidity, is cut short by Stiles being dropped unceremoniously onto the bed.

“Hush,” Derek commands to little effect. Stiles whimpers and moans and ruts up against him when they’re bodies lie horizontal against each other on the couch.

“I’m coming with you.” Stiles flushes pink, because  _really_. Great word choice, wonderful,  _excellent_ , he’s even more awkward in bed.

Derek sits up, his mouth damp. He stares down at Stiles and takes in the flush of his cheeks and the kiss-stung thickness of his lips. He grins, he can’t help himself but to smile down at Stiles.

Stiles sits up and chases Derek’s mouth with his own chattering one. “What’s so funny?” He asks, the more he kisses the wider Derek’s smile grows.

Derek doesn’t answer and Stiles lets it be. They kiss harder and more frantically. Stiles feels amped up on everything that’s happened, tonight especially. He’s fixed Derek, helped Derek, befriended Derek and arguably,  _genuinely_  fell in love with him. And from the tender way twitching fingertips trace his sides, Derek has probably fallen in love back.

They strip out of their clothes in a flurry, no dramatic or tense drawn out stripping, no tantalizing inches

of skin being revealed slowly, they don’t even bother to try and tear at each other’s clothes—rather, they scoot away to peel out of their own and come crashing back together naked. It’s electric with a heavy undercurrent of  _awkward_ , because this is Stiles’ first time, and Stiles can gather that Derek’s love and sex life isn’t exactly something to write home about. Not in a good way, at least.

But that’s part of what makes this whole thing so effortless, too. They both, silently, recognize when they shift too much and ruck up the sheets, when they go to kiss and stumble and bonk noses. None of it is met with laughter and none of it is met with scorn. It simply is and they both easily accept that, let it sink into them as feels right.

Derek guides Stiles onto his back and rests along his side. One hand plays across Stiles’ chest and the other, slick with lube procured from under the bed, slides between Stiles’ thighs.

“You’re sure.” Derek asks, voice heavy and wrecked, muscles and wires twitching under his skin.

Stiles grins, pink face betraying the lofty confidence in his voice. “Go for it, Sourbot.”

Derek kisses the smirk off his lips at the same moment he presses one finger into Stiles. It’s warm and filling and odd but enticing. Stiles rolls his hips—he isn’t a stranger to the feeling—and all but begs Derek for another. Derek obeys, suckling a hickey into Stiles’ neck with a fervor opposite the slow drag of his fingers. Stiles’ legs fall further apart and allow for a faster pace, Derek’s hand and two fingers moving quicker, easier, with purpose.

Derek kisses him harshly, inching his thighs further apart with the gentle press of his thumb to tender skin. “Can I?” He asks.

Stiles pants for air, focusing on the fingers inside him that slow but never stop. He thinks about the rush of excitement, of wonder running like fire through him. “Yeah, yeah, do it.” He says, shivering as Derek sits up and glides between his legs. “I love you,” he says again, whimpering softly as he feels Derek’s cock head slick across him. “You’re stupid and irrational and you’re so broken but I love you.” Stiles throws a hand over his eyes and grins. “Sorry, just, yeah. Do it.”

Derek does, and Stiles briefly marvels at the wonders of modern day technology because though he has little real world experience, it certainly  _feels_ like there’s a cock resting inside him, hard and hot. Stiles grunts as though all the air has been punched out of his stomach. Derek murmurs an apology against his lips and moves his thrusts slowly.

There’s no ejaculate, no pre-ejaculate, and Stiles feels it would be weird if there  _was—_ that’s a bridge of technology he feels unprepared to cross. Instead, Derek’s cock is slick with lube, probably too much but it makes the glide easier. Stiles’ nails dig into his back, raking little welts as they gain speed, rocking the bed against the wall.

“I love you, too.” Derek grunts out, biting at Stiles’ lip.

Stiles wails, a wet noise that rips from his throat, like erotic anguish. His nails dislodge from Derek’s back and instead Stiles pulls him close for a crushing hug and a bruising kiss. Stiles pants and keens against Derek’s lips, spread his legs wider while still keeping him locked in close.

Derek grunts again, it becomes a steady noise pressed into Stiles’ mouth as Derek’s thrusts grow frantic. Stiles rolls with them, finding friction for his weeping cock against Derek’s stomach, the subtle ridges of abs, the synthetic dusting of hair.

Derek drops his head to lave at Stiles’ neck; when he bites on the ball of Stiles’ shoulder, he’s met with a debauched cry, and the feel of come splattering between their bellies.

“Stiles,  _Stiles_ , fuck,” Derek bites down, drawing Stiles’ lower lip between his teeth. He gnaws on it tenderly as his hips jack hammer until a faintly familiar feeling trickles down his back, shivers and liquid pleasure running down his spine. “Ah, ah,” Derek lets the moans drop into Stiles’ mouth as his hips slow to be pressed flush against Stiles’ hips.

They pant and grin at each other sleepily, wrapped in each other’s arms. Derek sits up and rubs his fingers at Stiles’ hole after he’s pulled out, soothing the pleasantly abused flesh. They curl around each other again and haphazardly toss the blanket over them before dozing off.

)

Stiles rolls over the next morning. Or, rather, he attempts to. But an arm is secured around his waist and a nose is softly breathing against his neck. It’s comfortable and terrifying all at once. Derek mumbles something and blinks into awareness.

“Don’t freak out.” He says quietly, nosing at Stiles’ ear and chin. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah?”

Derek nods.

“Okay. Cool. Very cool.”

Silences stretches, comfortable and warm in the haze of the morning. Derek breaks it, though, slices through it with sharp and concise words. “I think we should attack tonight.”

Stiles nods. “Sure. Okay.”

He gulps. At least if they die, they died having this, right?

)

Stiles is wrapped up in the hoodie he was wearing the night, almost six weeks ago, he met Derek, as well as an overcoat and a scarf tucked in to keep his nose warm. Gloves on his fingers and heavy boots on his feet, he looks more like a Christmas Story reject than a man on a mission.

Derek, somehow, somewhere, when Stiles wasn’t looking, acquired a shirt that actually fits. A plain gray t shirt thrown together with jeans—also acquired somewhat suspiciously, not that Stiles is one to judge.

Derek grips him by the arm just before they leave the apartment. “Ready?” He asks, brushing a kiss across Stiles’ lips.

“As I’ll ever be,” Stiles assures, and with that, they’re off.

They’re taking Stiles’ jeep, rickety and sky blue, as far as they can to get as close as possible to HALECorp’s building. But it’s still a long walk from where they have to park to the side entrance that is, oddly enough, lacking security. Stiles is almost certain it’s the door where all dirty business is done—illicit trades and even more illicit roughing up of public officials. Why bother recording something you don’t want anyone to see?

They narrowly avoid an especially keen pair of bots and officers, but make it to the door with nothing more than racing hearts. Stiles gropes for Derek’s hand and lets Derek lead him inside, picking the lock with curious expertise. The hallway is dark, barely enough light for Stiles to see, all the more reason for Derek to lead the way. He’s been here, he knows where he’s going.

They reach a set of stairs and Derek lifts Stiles up with barely a warning. Stiles stands wobbly on his shoulders, breath verging on too loud, and deftly unscrews enough bolts to let the air vent swing open. Derek gives him a boost and he scrambles inside, nails scraping on the metal walls and knees bumping and bruising as he shimmies deeper. It’s a big enough vent that he can turn and watch Derek effortlessly and silently vault up, crawling like a spider inside.

“Go straight, take the first left,” Derek whispers, keeping a hand curled around Stiles’ ankle the whole while they shuffle on their hand and knees. Stiles obeys, stilling whenever he catches the echo of a voice in the building, the sound of a fan whirring in an office, the methodical clink of forks and knives on lunch trays. It’s surreal, feeling oddly like high school, yet not at all. “Next right, then stop before you reach the grate.”

Stiles nods, and holds his breath as they round the corner. He can already hear voices, ones that send chills up and down his spine and make bile rise in his throat. It isn’t the best time for nerves, and he curses them to Hell and back. Derek makes him back track down another passage of vents to let Derek a view through the grate. The conversation going on in the room below rises up to their ears.

“ _We should kill them soon.”_

“ _Oh please,”_  is a woman’s voice,  _“could you sound more like a trashy super villain?”_

Stiles would laugh were it any other time.

The man who spoke first speaks again.  _“They’re an unnecessary liability. They aren’t exactly morons, any of them. They could escape at any time.”_

The woman laughs. _“They won’t escape because they’re so heavily sedated they may as well be zombies. They’re not going to busting out of anywhere, anytime soon.”_

The man grumbles.  _“What about your brother, then? What if he and Hale start planning a rebellion?”_

“ _It’s cute that you think my brother has the balls to try something like that.”_  She laughs again. _“Neither of them are going to try anything, they’re smarter than that.”_

The man doesn’t sound convinced, and he mutters unintelligibly under his breath to prove it. Stiles leans closer, straining his ears for anything he could miss.

“ _What if the bot comes back.”_

The woman, rather than laughing, snarls.  _“He was destroyed. I made sure of it. He_ will not _be coming back.”_

Stiles looks pointedly at Derek, but he’s more focused on the grate, on the people within the room.

“ _You’re getting on my nerves,”_  the woman says,  _“go get Daddy.”_

Stiles blanches, because  _nothing_ good can come of the main super villainess asking for her  _dad_. He gently lays a hand over Derek’s, and tries to communicate with his eyebrows. Derek just glares him into silence, but holds his hand tighter as an apology.

“ _Yes, Kate, dear?”_

“ _We need to fire him.”_

“ _He’s your husband.”_

The woman, Kate, makes a flippant noise.  _“He’s useless.”_

“ _Alright.”_  ‘Daddy’ agrees.  _“He’ll be gone by morning.”_

Stiles wants to make a comment about how if some creepy, geriatric-incestual-whatever starts going down, he’s getting the fuck out of dodge. But he can’t, so he doesn’t, but it’s the thought that counts.

“ _He is right about one thing, though.”_  The older man says,  _“the cop and Miss Hale are unnecessary now, we should just kill them while we can.”_

Kate whines, a sound so purely juvenile it has Stiles cringing.  _“No.”_

The man hums thoughtfully.  _“You always did like to play with your food before you ate it.”_

There’s more talking, but Derek is ushering him onward, guiding the way silently through the vents, past twists and turns and a vent corridor that Stiles is certain is covered in blood. Eventually, the chatter of HALECorp workers cease, and they’re left with the noises of the industrial parts, the large fans and the underground cargo tram. Derek picks at the bolts until the vent swings down, allowing them to slip into a dusty inventory room.

“We have enough time to rest,” Derek says as he helps Stiles down from the vents.

“We have enough time for you to fill me in on some fucking details.” Stiles tells him, pulling out maps and their finalized plan. “I thought you said they knew you werecoming back?”

Derek shrugs, face drawn tight in an unpleasant expression.

“Well, at least they think you’re dead.” Stiles hums. He lays out the map after dusting off a box, and points to a labeled room. “We are here.” He traces his finger along the marked out plan, a solid black line leading them to the head honcho without much of a hitch, hopefully. Other hallways are marked with dotted lines, backups and last ditch efforts, of which Stiles made sure there were  _many_. “Should we just go?”

Derek takes him by the shoulders, though. “I promise to tell you.” He says, dead serious. “After this is over and when I can be sure that you’re safe, that everyone is safe.”

Stiles sighs. He sighs and tucks away everything but the map. “Okay.” He leans forward and dares to catch a small kiss on Derek’s lips, and they each pull back with slight, delicate smiles. “Okay.” Stiles says again. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Derek nods, and leads the way yet again. The hallways they find themselves in are empty, abandoned and dusty, untouched. Derek looks angrier about it, and Stiles’ curiosity only grows. Eventually, they get close enough—after far too many stairwells—to the main levels, and again they can hear the faint chatter.

“Which door?” Derek asks as Stiles looks over the map.

“The right.”

All in all, their journey feels anticlimactic. A sense of “it’s quiet… too quiet” falls over them as they tread on the balls of their feet for utmost silence.

They reach a broom closet and tuck themselves inside it for a moment of regroup. “Does it feel too easy to you?”

Derek nods, not the slightest bit out of breath. It’s a weird parallel, Stiles thinks, to the night they met, not so long ago. In the minimal light—of Derek’s eyes, no less—Stiles scans over the map.

“We only have about another thirty feet before we could get into an elevator, rig it, maybe take the elevator shafts to the top?”

Derek looks strained at the thought of more vents.

“I think it’s just the safest thing.” Stiles shrugs. “But you obviously know this place better than I do, so.” Stiles gestures for him to look at the map. Derek huddles in close just as footsteps pass. It’s the woman, Stiles knows from the click of her heels and as she starts to speak.

“ _What do you_ mean _there are intruders?”_

“ _Well, Miss Argent,”_  a shaky voice stammers,  _“we, we can’t be certain, but have reason to believe there’s been a break in be-because, well, ma’am, the back security door was slightly ajar, and, and—”_

The woman scoffs.  _“Imbecile.”_

Stiles remarks, silently, to himself,  _‘who’s the cliché super villain now?’_ and he thinks it with far more gratification than he should.

Kate starts talking again, though her voice gets smaller and smaller as she moves away from the closet.  _“Whoever it is, find them, and kill them.”_

Derek looks even more emotionally constipated after she’s gone. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Stiles silences him with a flick to the nose. “Hush. Now, pick, are we taking the elevator or stairs?”

Derek looks at the map again, and even draws his lower lip between his teeth. He declares after another bout of silence, brought on by more employees passing by, “elevator. Straight to the top. No more vents, just.” He looks at Stiles. “You can rig it not to stop for anyone else, can’t you?”

Stiles laughs quietly. “Duh.”

Stiles peeks his head out the door, and looks around before grabbing Derek’s wrist and pulling him down the fall. His shoe almost squeaks on the pristine tile floors but Derek gives him an extra push and they leave the half of a noise behind them. Stiles can see it, fingers curled bone-crunchingly tight around Derek’s wrist, the sleek doors of the elevator, black chrome against gray walls.

Stiles reaches out for the blinking red button to call the elevator to their floor, when Derek halts, the both of them skidding to a stop.

“Derek, what the fuck—!”

The elevator doors slide open, cool and clean, revealing a terrifying blonde woman and a greasy old man with a greasier smile.

“So nice to see you again, Derek,” the woman drawls, and Stiles realizes he can place a face to the Kate from before. “It’s been a while.”

Before Stiles can come up with a witty retort, hands are shoving at his back to hustle him and Derek into the elevator. The door slides shut with the quietest of clicks behind them, and the following silence is more unsettling than either of the Argent’s grins.

Kate’s smile broadens as the time passes, a soft ding sounding the elevator as they travel one floor, two floors, three floors and counting. “I think you’ll find the penthouse office lovely, very spacious, plenty of places to discuss, negotiate. Maim.”

Stiles hopes the fear doesn’t show in his eyes.

“What brings you back, Derek?” Her eyes shift to linger on Stiles. “And you brought a toy, how cute.” She reaches out and drags her fingernails over his cheek, gentle and threatening. She tuts under her breath and looks to the old man. “Daddy, what should we do with them?”

“Lump them in with the others,” he answers, automatic as his lips wrinkle and curl into a toothy smirk. “Kill them all together. Let the boy see his father one last time.”

Stiles chokes on his inhale and is only partially comforted by Derek’s grip on his shoulder. “My dad?”

“Oh yes, you poor thing.” Kate teases, scraping her nails against the metal of the interior. “First your mother, then your precious father, right? You thought you were all alone.”

Stiles stands rigid and breathless, but he tamps down the fear and panic rising in his chest.

“He’s been a model prisoner. He rarely argues, seldom fights. He mostly sits there, he talks about his wife and you. He thinks you’re both dead.” Kate breaks into a crazed smile. “I’m almost certain he’s gone mad with grief.”

But even this fails to get a rise out of Stiles, only because it would be less anger and more tears, and Stiles knows he can’t spare the vulnerability at a time like this.

Derek snarls, and Stiles watches his eyes flicker from blue to red, but there’s a final ding. A voice tells them,  _ **“you have reached the penthouse office, please swipe identification card to access this floor.”**_

The man, ‘Daddy,’ steps up and does as asked, and Stiles feels himself get dragged inside by guards in riot gear.

“Isn’t this a bit excessive?” Stiles comments, only half struggling in a grip sure to break him. Derek is simply ushered out of the elevator, as though no one has been instructed to touch him. Stiles, as Kate moves to a different room and as ‘Daddy’ murmurs into a walkie talkie, takes in the room, surveys the office. It’s painted creams and eggshells and sky blues, and each room is floored with a different carpet or tile. It looks, almost, like a rather fancy but tame hotel room. But the pristine display brings to mind a chilling sense of doom.

“So boys, what’ll it be?” Kate asks, reentering the room with a tray of drinks. “Quick and painless, or kill you slowly?”

“Let him go, Kate.” Derek cuts across any further taunting. “He isn’t part of this.”

Kate sneers. “Oh but he  _is_. Him, and his mother, and his father—the whole lot of them need to learn to keep their noses out of other people’s business.” She pours a suspicious looking drink, all hues of red. “And if they have to learn the hard way, then so be it.”

“Kate.” Derek’s voice is strong, loud and commanding. She stops in her advance on Stiles. “He’s not a threat. He’s just a kid.”

Kate clucks her tongue, “he’s an adult, Derek, I don’t think he needs you standing up for him.”

Derek steps forward and Stiles knows something is off when the guards make no move to stop him. “Stop this.” He reaches out and Kate allows him to knock the glass from her hand. “You don’t need to hurt him, just let him go.”

“Please don’t go the whole ‘it’s me you want’ route, Derek, I’m  _begging_  you,” Stiles pipes in, earning a cuff upside the head from Derek.

“It’s true, though,” Derek continues, “you don’t need him. You don’t need any more  _toys_ , Kate.”

Kate laughs and passes along the tray to a bot fluttering towards her. “Fair enough. You always were such an excellent  _toy_.” She stands toe to toe with Derek and strokes a finger along his chest, along his face, down the artificial veins of his arms. “But maybe I want something more than just a mindless droid, maybe I want something with a little more meat on its bones.”

Her eyes yet again flick to Stiles. Derek growls again.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is he  _yours_?” She laughs. “It’s like letting yourself be owned by a  _dog_ ,” she snaps at Stiles, “degrading and meaningless.”

Stiles, for all that he’s been mostly composed up till now, begins to struggle against the grip on his arms. “You are such a  _bitch_.” He’s forced to settle on when it’s certain he can’t break the grip. “What’s your problem?”

‘Daddy’ laughs, startling and sudden and Stiles had almost forgotten he was there. “Dear boy, you have no idea.”

“Don’t spoil all the fun, Gerard,” a new voice says, “let Kate have her last fifteen minutes of fame.” It’s a face Stiles has seen and a voice he’s only heard on HALECorp commercials: Chris Argent, being marched into the room by guards and followed quick after by Peter Hale.

Stiles doesn’t miss the way Peter’s and Derek’s eyes lock. But it goes without comment.

“My last fifteen? Oh, brother, how mistaken you are.”

Stiles groans. “What is with all the dramatic tension when you guys talk? We aren’t a movie, and you aren’t some Grade A super villain!” He jerks his head at Kate. “You either!” This time, at Gerard. He sighs through his nose and catches hints of smiles on Chris’ and Peter’s faces.

Kate bristles, though. “Bring in the rest of them.” She snaps her fingers like a greedy princess. Stiles opens his mouth to make a comment, but Kate speaks over him. “And restrain Derek. Can’t have him losing his temper.” She smirks, a cat like grin. Other bots, hovering and mindless, hurry over and secure Derek to them when metal latches and bracelets. He growls but makes no move to break free.

‘The rest of them’ turn out to be two old and tired and grimy faces. Shackled and cuffed and in only barely clean clothing. One is a woman, thinner than she should be with her long dark brown hair pulled back in a scraggly pony tail. The personal following tiredly at her heels has Stiles gasping for breath.

“Dad?” His voice cracks, embarrassingly sharp in the silence of the penthouse. “Dad?” Stiles makes to move towards him, but a guard holds him back.

His dad looks up though, and smiles. “Stiles,” he says in a voice that’s wrecked and broken. “You look good, kid.”

Stiles sniffles and damns the tears pricking at his eyes. “You kind of look like shit,” he admits, and relishes every uneasy moment of his dad’s laughter.

“Language,” his dad tells him.

A slow clap draws their attention. “This is absolutely heartwarming, but you’re all loose ends.” Kate eyes each of them with equal venom. “I think it’s time to change that.”

Derek snarls. “You won’t get away with this.”

Kate actually looks intrigued, “oh?” She asks, tapping a delicate fingernail against his chin. “Why’s that?”

Derek struggles for a moment, and Stiles recognizes it as an antsy, overwhelming degree of rage. “Because even if you kill all of us, there will be others. There will always be others.” He snaps, biting at Kate when she gets too close. “Maybe not for the same reasons, but people will know what sort of monsters are running this company, and your day will come.”

Kate grins again, and Stiles wonders if it’d be considered rude to sew her mouth shut. “Oh, Derek. So  _sure_ , so  _confident_.” She traces her nails along his chest, his neck and his ears and Stiles wants to shout out  _mine_ , but refrains. “Who should we kill first?”

She turns to Gerard, who looks with her at the prisoners. “Peter is the oldest.” Gerard points out, “easiest.”

Derek scoffs and it sends Stiles into a startled laugh.

“Or perhaps my dearest brother,” Kate hums, blowing a kiss at her gray haired brother, all long lines and exhausted wrinkles. “Or maybe just go for the big one,” her eyes fall on Stiles. “Too many people here care about you. It’d be so easy to just break their morale, suck the will right out of them.” She approaches Stiles, now, and observes him with eyes too wide and crazy. “I’m almost impressed at how a little twerp like you managed to worm your way into this place, into Derek’s little robotic heart. It’s almost like you were  _meant_  to be here.” She laughs, gleeful and mad.

And right as her manicured nail comes just a hair too close for comfort to Stiles’ jugular, the guards holding back Chris and Peter crumple to the grown. In the emptiness of the penthouse, a voice echoes. One Stiles has never heard, but feels safe taking comfort in.

“ _Mrs. Argent,”_  the voice speaks full of sass and boredom,  _“it would appear that you’re trying to be worst super villain in the history of, oh,_ ever _. And for that, I genuinely congratulate you.”_  The voice fakes enthusiasm.  _“However, I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut this little meeting short.”_   Two more bots, carrying drinks and what is undoubtedly poison, collapse to the ground. The voice tsk’s.  _“That’s the problem with relying too much on these bots, Mrs. Argent. They’re never as good as the real thing.”_

“Stiles!”

He turns and sees Scott running at him—well, actually, running at the guards holding him, with a taser stick in hand that flies perilously close to his face. Stiles squeaks, a downright unmanly noise, but Scott has good enough aim to take out those guards as well.

“Hey dude.” Scott beams.

Stiles blinks. “What the hell?”

“You think Alison would let you come in here without her own backup plan?” Scott laughs. “Lydia totally hacked the mainframe.”

Stiles lights up instantly. “Dude!”

Kate coughs, loudly. “I don’t need bots to take you out.” She eyes each of them, and Stiles knows that if it were just him, or just him and Scott, or even just him and his dad, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

But Gerard looks weak, however evil he may seem from a distance. His face is more tired and worn out than Peter’s or Chris’ or the woman’s. Gerard looks sickly, pale, and quickly getting worse.

The guards holding the brown haired woman and Stiles’ father collapse as well. Stiles breaks out into a smile, winking at Derek whose still held back. “Looks like it’s even ground.”

Kate sneers at him, the most childish expression imaginable on a forty-something year old woman. “Not quite, kid.” There’s a unified marching, “not  _all_ the guards are bots.” the sound of footsteps trampling their way closer and closer.

Stiles shrugs. He looks to Scott, who passes along another taser stick—which, again, Stiles takes a moment to appreciate the surreal feeling of the fact that  _his life is a god damned scifi movie_. But, he thinks, at least it’s the good kind, not the shitty low budget kind.

“Stiles! Duck!” His father calls out, and Stiles hears him quick enough to dodge a hit from a riot-gear clad guard. Stiles groans and uses the stick the best way he can think of: bashing it repeatedly over the guards head until there’s a sickening crunch, and the guard falls to the ground.

Stiles surveys the damage and wreckage being reeked around him. Scott fights side by side with Stiles’ father, easily fending off the less protected guards. The woman and Peter, too, stand back to back and use some freakishly well put-together martial arts to break necks and rip joints from sockets. Stiles files the woman away for later, to ask Derek about.

Speaking of, Stiles turns, coming face to face with another guard whom he knees in the balls and watches crawl away; once the path is clear, Stiles watches. He watches Kate slink around the carnage and glide straight to Derek. Stiles groans, but turns back to the fray.  _Please be alright, take care of yourself, just for a few minutes_ , Stiles nods, and meets Derek’s eyes one more time before raising the stick and slamming the electric taser end into the neck of a weary guard.

Derek watches.He peers as best he can around Kate’s blonde locks and sneering face, to see Stiles and Scott and watch them and make sure they’re alright. Kate grabs his chin, though, and steers him to look her in the eyes. As the guards and silence fall behind her, she speaks.

“Oh, Derek. You were so cute.”

Derek struggles, biting at her fingertips.

“A fresh bot, the only one of your model. You thought you were  _unique_ , thought you were special.” She laughs breathlessly against his face. “You thought you were  _human_ , a real boy.” Derek quakes under her gaze and hates himself for it with each passing minute. “But Peter made you, built you in the image of his son that Daddy killed. You had his memories, his likeness, but you weren’t  _him_. It wasn’t the  _same_.”

Peter’s cry of “that’s not _true_ ” falls mostly on deaf ears.

Kate continues. “He pushed you away, he and Laura both. You were so lonely, no one to turn to and no one to treat you right.” Her body presses against Derek and she almost kisses him, lips a hairsbreadth apart. “And then there I was.”

Derek catches Stiles bristling far behind Kate.

“There I was and you were so  _happy_  to be in love, so eager and sweet. All puppy love and affection.” Her fingers, the way they glide across his synthetic skin, betray the sweet tone of her voice. The nails dig in and leave light welts in the skin that will heal. “And then, you asked to take me home. To meet your parents. You said you had a  _family_ , and who was I to tell you what you truly were— _are_?”

“You bitch—!” Is Stiles’ enraged roar, but it seems so distant to Derek.

“So I did, I met Peter and Laura and charmed my way in.” She speaks with such pride, such certainty in herself. “And then, I ripped it all out from under you. I took down Laura and I made sure I was in charge alongside Peter and Chris.” She licks at the shell of Derek’s ear. “I told the presses that the precious Hale recreation died in a tragic warehouse fire. And then, I left you for dead.”

She pulls back, straightening the wrinkles in her clothes. “My mistake, of course. Because it’s just my luck that you weren’t actually killed.” She sighs. “But, I can fix that.”

Derek roars, but before anything else can happen he hears Scott shout,  _“Stiles where the fuck did you get a gun!?”_  And it’s comedic and tragic, wonderful and awful and quite like whiplash, how fast the next few seconds pass. There’s a sharp gunshot, leaving ringing in their ears; Kate howls in pain but rounds on Stiles rather than succumbing to defeat.

As though in slow motion, Derek watches them wrestle for the gun, and all he knows is that he shook off the bots the moment Kate got the gun in her hands. He breaks out of the restraints, all the noise around them but a dull roar in his ears, and flies forward. He feels the give of flesh beneath his hands and the tearing of skin in his mouth. It’s animalistic in a way he was never designed to be, but it’s unrelenting and unstoppable.

There’s a blood-curdled scream, the last dying gasps falling from Kate’s lips as the gun tumbles from her hand and as their bodies sink to the ground in a ragged and lifeless heap. Derek raises his head, feeling oddly disgusted at himself, and into Stiles eyes.

Stiles who, oddly enough, looks rather calm. “Dude.”

“Stiles, I—?”

The last thing Derek sees is Stiles’ stunned, horrified face, and the last thing he hears, alongside the sharp pain at the small of his back, is Gerard weakly telling him,  _“too bad.”_

)

The first thing Derek sees when he wakes up is Alison’s familiar face, but far more tangible.

“Good afternoon, Derek.” She tells him, smiling delicately as she helps him to sit.

Derek grunts and clutches at his head. “What…”

“Stiles will be in shortly,” Alison assures, patting his shoulder in a way that’s both mechanical and comforting. Derek watches her leave and takes in the way she’s still unsure of her new body, of her  _real_  body. She’s jerky in some movements, but altogether very fluid and graceful. It’s admirable, and Derek wishes he’d seen Scott’s face when she was finished.

Stiles bursts in not a moment later. “You’re awake! It worked!”

Derek gathers Stiles into his arms before anything else can be said. When the hug breaks, though, he does speak. “What happened?”

Stiles sits beside him on the plush hospital sort of bed “Where do you want me to start? There’s.. a lot you missed.” But Stiles is still smiling bright and wide. So Derek settles back and tells him to start wherever.

Thankfully, though, Stiles starts at the relative beginning. He starts from Derek tearing Kate to shreds, and explains that Gerard had hobbled his face over and stabbed into Derek’s control panel on his back. Gerard tore into the wiring and the circuitry, and Derek was, for all intents and purposes and as much as a bot can be,  _dead_. Derek was dead for a good two days. Stiles also mentions that he then shot Gerard pointblank in the forehead before bursting into tears and holding Derek’s lifeless body close.

“But!” Stiles exclaims, pointing a finger excitedly, like a true scientist. “I made you a new one. I mean, my dad and Peter helped. I guess they had dad working in a factory as a mechanic so he actually knows a lot about bots now. But we, we all did. We built you a new body.” Stiles reaches out and covers a spot on Derek’s chest. “You’re not just a HALEBot anymore.” He tells Derek as he removes his hand. Derek looks down, and sees no barcode. On instinct he raises his arm and looks for a similar mark only to find bare skin.

“How? Why?”

Stiles laughs. “Maybe because I’m stupidly in love with you? And maybe because Peter and Laura love you like family, too, and want you back in their lives?” Stiles eagerly guides Derek’s hands over Derek’s new body. “I kept the spiral, though. Peter said it was a symbol of the Hale family.” Stiles’ fingers dance to Derek’s back. “It’s more of a tattoo than a brand.”

“No barcodes?”

Stiles shakes his head and his smile turns a little watery. “No.” He cups Derek’s face and draws him in close. “Laura and Peter are in charge again. They asked Chris to stay—I think Laura and Chris might be boning, or maybe Peter and Chris, or quite possibly all three of them? I’m not sure.” Stiles shrugs and laughs and Derek feels his face react naturally: that is, it pulls into a disgusted expression. Stiles laughs harder.

“Your dad?”

“Given a medal. All of us were. It’s all over the news and papers and shit.” Now that Derek looks, the adrenaline of waking up fading, he sees how tired Stiles seems. “Peter and Laura are making plans to help with all the damage caused. It’s not perfect. Kate and Gerard fucked up a lot of shit. But it’s gonna get better.” Stiles declares. “It’s going to be alright.”

Derek smiles. “Yeah, I think it is.”


End file.
